1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to systems and method of planning treatments, execution of treatments and imaging. By using imaging techniques and data to differentiate between malignant and non-malignant prostate tissue, tissue removal such as by means of sectioning and ablation is directed to the malignant tissue, for preservation of the non-malignant tissue in the prostate and surrounding region, thereby minimizing the destructive effects of tissue removal.
2. Background of the Art
Prostate cancer is widely believed to be the most common cancer in men and the second most common cause of death due to cancer. There were approximately 230,000 reported cases of prostate cancer diagnosed in North America in 2005 and over 30,000 deaths. Furthermore, the true prevalence of the disease has been calculated at more than 25% of men over 55. The standard treatments for localized prostate cancer are radical surgery or radiotherapy. These entail ablation of the entire prostate with some degree of unintended collateral damage to surrounding organs. The standard belief is that prostate cancer is a multifocal disease so that treatments are required that target the entire prostate gland. These treatments are neither completely curative nor devoid of side effects. Recent data suggest that this may not be correct in all cases. For the majority of patients low grade and low volume prostate cancer is the prevalent pathological finding and offers minimal risk of morbidity or mortality. Indeed, many believe that radical intervention using standard treatments might offer more harm than good and a strategy of deferred treatment is now being adopted. However, even in this favorable group approximately 20% of men can be expected to die from their disease if followed for long enough.
A new paradigm of therapy is to target selective therapeutic destruction of only the region of malignant (tumor) tissue within the prostate. A histological analysis of over 900 prostatectomy specimens removed for prostate cancer suggest that a solitary dominant lesion is the source of extracapsular in over 80% of patients and thus the likely source of extraprostatic spread. Destruction of this single site is likely to significantly decrease the risk of progression and increase cancer control with minimal side effects.